I am – Hercules!!




The youngsters won’t remember, but there was a time when Jay Leno was hilarious. He was one of the guys who in the mid-1980s would come on NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman” once a month and blow the roof off the place.

Look how funny this Leno guy was a quarter-century ago:

Kreemus from Rigel Seven!!

Somewhere between taking over as permanent guest host of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and starting his 17-year tenure as host of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” the lantern-jawed comic decided to settle for cranking out the blandest talk show this side of “Entertainers With Byron Allen.”

Tonight is Leno’s final night as “Tonight Show” host. I’m almost certain I’ll hate it. His final guest is Conan O’Brien, who was very funny in his “Jay isn’t leaving” cameo on Jimmy Fallon’s first edition of "Late Night." I’m hopeful Leno and O'Brien will be able to lash something funny together, but I guess I won’t be holding my breath. Last night, with Billy Crystal and his songs and pathetic Twitter bit and inevitable bore-fest of a baseball story, was a 60-minute study in the kind of awful that would embarrass even the cast and writers of “Mad TV.”

Jay turns 60 next April, so I wonder how advertiser-friendly will be found his primetime demo, and for how long. My sense is NBC is committed to keeping “The Jay Leno Show,” premiering in September, on the airwaves at least eight months, even if its ratings come to plummet to “Poker After Dark” levels. I predict Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe will appear on the first edition of “Leno” and Jay will find every word out of the designated action star’s mouth hysterical.

For those interested, my favorite talk show these days isn’t on TV; it’s Adam Carolla’s profanely evil, uncensored, commercial-free daily podcast, born out of the non-compete clause in the funnyman’s still-ticking CBS contract. And, as odd as this may sound, it’s apparently already the most popular podcast in the world. Find it here.

Also, if you’ll permit another digression, Carolla’s little-seen but brainily hilarious and much recommended (77% positive among “top critics” at Rotten Tomatoes) 2008 romantic comedy, “The Hammer,” hits HBO late Tuesday night somewhere between 9 p.m. and midnight, depending where you live and how you get HBO.

Leno's final "Tonight Show" airs 11:35 p.m. Friday on NBC.

Galactica: The Complete Series

Galactica: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)